These Colors Cannot Run… Afghanistan

Is your representative speaking out against escalation
of the Afghanistan war?

Last week, some members of Congress sent President Obama a letter that urged
him to "reconsider" his order deploying 17,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

Everyone in the House of Representatives had ample opportunity to sign onto
the letter. Beginning in late February, it circulated on Capitol Hill for more
than two weeks. The letter was the most organized congressional move so far
to challenge escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

But the list of signers was awfully short.

California: Bob Filner, Michael Honda

Hawaii: Neil Abercrombie

Kentucky: Ed Whitfield

Maryland: Roscoe Bartlett

Massachusetts: Jim McGovern

Michigan: John Conyers

North Carolina: Howard Coble, Walter Jones

Ohio: Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich

Tennessee: John Duncan

Texas: Ron Paul

Wisconsin: Steve Kagen

We desperately need a substantive national debate on U.S. military intervention
in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the Obama administration says that the problems
of the region cannot be solved by military means, the basic approach is reliance
on heightened military means.

One of several journalists in Afghanistan on a tour "organized by the staff
of commanding Gen. David D. McKiernan," the Washington Post's Jackson
Diehl, wrote a March
23 op-ed in support of an invigorated "counterinsurgency strategy." With
journalistic resolve, he explained: "Everyone expects a surge of violence and
American casualties this year; no one expects a decisive improvement in the
situation for at least several years beyond that."

The commanding general, Diehl added, does not anticipate that the Afghan army
"can defend the country on its own" until 2016. In effect, the message is to
stay the course for another seven years: "The thousands of American soldiers
and civilians pouring into the country deserve that strategic patience; without
it, the sacrifices we will soon hear of will be wasted."

And so, with chillingly familiar echoes, goes the perverse logic of escalating
the war in Afghanistan. "Strategic patience" – more and more war – will be
necessary so that those who must die will not have died in vain.

In contrast, the letter from the 14 members of the House (eight Democrats,
six Republicans) lays down a clear line of opposition to the rationales for
stepping up the warfare.

"If the intent is to leave behind a stable Afghanistan capable of governing
itself, this military escalation may well be counterproductive," the letter
says. And it warns that "any perceived military success in Afghanistan might
create pressure to increase military activity in Pakistan. This could very
well lead to dangerous destabilization in the region and would increase hostility
toward the United States."

More than 400 members of the House declined to sign the letter. In effect,
they failed to join in a historic challenge to a prevailing assumption – that
the U.S. government must use massive violence for many more years to try to
work Washington's will on Afghanistan.